Hello, fellow CC fans! My name is Keith… “long-time reader, first-time writer”. I’ve been fortunate enough to have been around, owned and enjoyed quite a few vintage automobiles in the twenty-six years I’ve been wandering this Earth, particularly the fine state of Minnesota and its surroundings. In time, I hope to share many of them with you, but for today, and for my first CC, I decided to pass over the unicorns and pick something a bit more ordinary. Or is it?

At first glance you might think this 1994 Cutlass Supreme is just another typical W-body–but something about it is a little off. Can you see what it is?

Midway through 1988, Oldsmobile released the new FWD Cutlasses, which replaced the venerable G-body Cutlass Supreme (and a topic for another day). Through 1991, the car mostly retained its original look, complete with glass composite headlights and accented side trim. But for 1992, the Cutlass received a face lift: quad sealed beams, a new bumper and hood design, and color-keyed body cladding were among the many features that carried this sporty-yet-practical Olds through to its finale in 1997.

“But wait,” you say: “This mongrel is sporting the later appearance package, yet it has the early front clip!” And you’d be absolutely correct.

I found this car languishing in a backyard in Austin, Minnesota, a place known more for its SPAM than its jalopies, but I digress. It was owned by a middle-aged divorcee who had inherited it from her mother–and it was a real cream puff, too. Just over 100K miles, zero rust, nice leather interior, fresh head gaskets and new, brand-name tires. The only problem was that she’d managed to get into a minor accident with it, destroying the left fender, hood, header panel, bumper cover and radiator.

Had her living situation been more normal, the story went, her husband/mechanic would have had it back on the road in a hurry. But since she’d recently thrown him out, there was no one to do the repairs–and so, there it was for the taking, available to anyone with $600 cash and the means to remove it. Needless to say, I pounced.

This was back in the bad old days, in which I owned neither a trailer nor a car dolly, and the car was 150 miles from home. What to do? The same as any crazy kid in my position would have done: round up my tools, hit the junkyard bright and early on Saturday, snag a radiator, buy a smattering of fluids, recruit a second driver and then head back to Austin. I did the repair, which included stripping off any damaged body panels, right there in her yard. We literally folded the hood in half and slid it into the trunk, aided by the fold-flat back seat. Then, with most of the front clip missing and a few prayers having been muttered, we hit the highway for the long trip home.

Fortunately, it was a pretty uneventful trip. With my old man in the lead, driving my then-DD Impala (another story for another day), we managed to make it back fine, despite the wreck having no front illumination except the indicators I’d zip-tied into place. At one point, we did encounter a State Trooper while in traffic, but he just laughed and continued on his way. Not exactly the response I was expecting, but I was happy to take it.

Upon returning home, my first priority was finding front-end parts. I had a particular white four-door donor in mind, but when I got to the boneyard, surprise! Four-door and two-door Cutlass Supremes don’t share front clips (or much of anything else, for that matter), and ’92-’95 coupes were non-existent. In fact, the only two-door I could find was a blue ’88. Interchange said it was wrong. Visual impression said it was wrong. But my measurements said it was right, so I went for it.

Here’s your CC Tip Of The Day: You can use ’88-’91 hoods/headers/bumper covers on ’92-’97 cars, and vice versa – but you have to use all three items together. Do that, and you’re golden. Fenders interchange across the years as well, so long as you can manage the trim differences.

Several weeks later, I found a guy on Craigslist who was selling a clean but paperless ’89 coupe for $200… and it was even in my color. Sold! The blue parts were returned to the car from which they came (at the time, that particular junkyard had a policy that you could return any undamaged part for a full refund, so long as you reinstalled it as you found it; it’s now under different ownership), and the white parts went on.

It seemed a shame to crush such a clean car. But without a title, its only remaining purpose was to sacrifice the remainder of its usable parts and take one for the team.

After 7,000 enjoyable and leather-padded miles, I gave the car a good detailing and sold it, for $1,700, to a nice gentleman who had a long commute. It was a nearly perfect deal – buy low, fix, enjoy, and sell high. Everything about this car formed the template for those that followed.

35 Comments

Thanks for sharing! It’s great to here from new perspectives, and I hope your articles become regular sights at CC. Interesting repair, I like it.

Despite the Pontiac-ish cladding, I like the overall styling of the final generation Cutlass Supremes. They were actually produced through 1997, which is unusually long, but not surprising given their predecessors’ as well as the Cutlass Ciera’s long lifespans. The convertibles were especially cool and unique to Oldsmobile.

You’re absolutely right, it should be 1997. Pretty sure ’95 was merely the last year for the original style dash (and perhaps a few other things which I can’t remember right now); the final two years would get the more modern-looking “curvy” ones. Thanks for pointing that out.

I actually did (briefly) own a ‘vert of the same year and color as well. Somewhere I even have a pic of the two cars parked next to each other! Expect to see that one sometime in the future.

Count me in as another one who had no idea the Cutlass Supreme was built that long, until I saw a classified ad for a ’97 a year or two ago.

Sometimes, though, it does make sense to keep making a “zombie” car. Sometime in the past year, I remember a Subaru executive stating that it is cheaper to keep making the Tribeca than it is to stop making it! (The Tribeca, not unlike the Cutlass Supreme, I assume, can be built alongside much more popular products.)

The Cutlass Supreme was popular up until that day at the end of 1997 that the car was axed in favor of an Oldsmobile Malibu….err I mean Oldsmobile Cutlass that was nothing more then Olds badging on a malibu. Adios Cutlass and Adios Oldsmoble

Anyway the reason that you don’t see many of the 88-97 Cutlass Supreme around on the road even though they were big sellers is because the crap 2.8/3.1/3100 V6 engines put in the cars did them in. The Cutty with the 2.3 Quad 4 were few and far between and so was the DOHC 3.4 V6.

They did not get the good 3.8l V6 and got stuck with the GM 60 degree V6 engines which were such a big POS. These engines had cooling issues and while folks like to say that Dex-cool caused it, Dex came into play on 1995-1996 GM vehicles. the engines had cooling issues dating back to the time it was introduced to us via the X Body vehicles. The late 1980’s revision of the engine (called Gen II) featured aluminum parts to make it lighter and it still had cooling issues. So must owners did not realized till too late that the engine had leaking intake gaskets or a leak in the timing chain cover(ala 2.8L) and the engine cooked and it was not worth the money to fix so the cars were junked

Philhawk

Posted October 6, 2013 at 11:29 AM

I thought the Malibu/Cutlass replaced the Ciera and the Intrigue replaced the Cutty Supreme…

Dave M.

Posted October 6, 2013 at 10:09 PM

The last gen Cutlass (nee Malibu) was absolutely the worst sendoff of a successful nameplate ever. Talk about losing your way…but by then the Olds execs HAD to have known something was up….

Leon

Posted October 7, 2013 at 6:33 PM

Philhawk

You are correct the Malibu based cutlass was a replacement for the Ciera(which by the way also was selling loads in 1996 when it was killed off) and the intrigue was the replacement for the Cutty Supreme. But I wanted to touch on the fact the famed Cutlass name was dragged through the mud one last time with being affixed to that gussied up version of the malibu(though to be fair to the Bu, the 1997 malibu was loads better the the Beretta/Corsica that the 97 Bu replaced)

Yeah my uncle had a first model year sedan and he loved to switch back and forth between mph/kph with the digital dash just to see how long it would take a passenger to notice the higher #s on the dash. “Wait, Tim, that say’s 88!”

Then in college a buddy of mine had another first year sedan with digital dash that would randomly “cut out” and go dark while driving. Usually a good smack on the top of the dash would bring it back to life. That car had a hard life though and also wouldn’t hold a front end alignment either.

Those are also the 3.4L DOHC V6 wheels and not the 3.1 Wheels. I had a ’93 convertible in the same colours from ’98-2001. I LOVED that car . . . and then it started disintegrating fairly quickly and I got tired of the expensive (to me) maintenance. The alternators on the 3.4 were underneath the engine and cost a LOT to replace. The driver’s door handle broke several times, it had an oil leak, the air didn’t work, the driver’s side rear quarter window didn’t go down, a power steering hose went out . . . the interior started coming apart, the horn never worked, the wipers had a bad habit of intermittently working . . . I didn’t have a good mechanic at the time and was taking it to the dealer and discovered I was paying as much in repairs as I would have for a new car payment and then sold it and bought . . . a new Catera. Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire. I wish there were a nice, 4 seater convertible nowadays but the Mustangs are too small in the back seat for adults and the Sebring is . . . yuck.

I cannot look at one of these without recalling a case from several years ago. A red one of these sat on a dealer lot brand new. The dealer hired mom and pop radio installers to put an upgraded stereo into the car. Then, a few days later, something under the dash caught fire.

The car was brand new, and incredibly, not totalled. The dealer body shop took the interior out all the way to the steel firewall. The body guy proudly told me that he had never had a car that far apart before in his life. So, while everyone else here looks at the dash of this car, I see a mental picture of the steel firewall way, way back under there.

I never did find out how the dealer sold it. Probably sold it as a new car to some poor unsuspecting fool.

I never paid enough attention to these cars to notice anything odd about it. This is most likely due to the practically new one I rented. With very low miles on it the interior light didn’t work – I dropped the keys on the floor on a moonless night and had to find them by the Braille method. The automatic door locks wouldn’t release once the car had moved unless I put the car in park and shut off the engine. I found this out when my wife got out of the car to mail a letter and couldn’t get back in, and I couldn’t manually release the locks. I thought, good grief, what are these things going to be like when they’ve got 50,000 miles on them….

I have the four door version of this car, and it has been a daily driver for over 12 years. It has the same color combination, but with a cloth interior with a split bench seat. Red has always been my favorite interior color. Maybe it will come back someday. White is a good low maintenance, cool color to have in the Texas sun. It probably has been the best combination of comfort, economy, reliability, and ease to repair of any car of the 80+ I have owned over the past 41 years. Of course I have owned it longer and driven it more miles than any of the others, so that affects the grading curve.

I believe ’95 was the first year for the redesigned dash. The primary reason for the redesign was to allow for the passenger side air bag.

Thanks for the write up and welcome as a writer. I always enjoy the personal experiences type of articles. You also have some interesting iron in the background of your pictures, Caprice, C1500, Grand Wagoneer, Regal, C3500. If not current, certainly future CC’s. I especially like the GW.

Interesting write-up, nice job returning a CC to the streets. I look forward to seeing more stories from you.

When these coupes came out in ’88, I wanted one so bad. But a friend of mine had a sedan version, and it was nothing but trouble from new. The last in a long succession of Oldsmobiles in that family. Oh well. But these coupes sure looked sharp – and still do for me.

I could never really decide which front/rear treatment I liked best on these. I like the smooth euro look of the composite headlight models and the intricate tail treatment but the ’92+ front end has a lot of character. I had considered one about ten years ago as a daily to replace my Caprice but that busy/clunky interior turned me off. Still have the Caprice.

Funny thing with the ’92 models, at least the sedan as far as I know, they were the only year to get a blacked out panel between the taillights.

Those red leather seats look mighty inviting. And I’m not too surprised that the cop just laughed and didn’t do anything. Cops are usually pretty decent (at least around here) if they can tell that you aren’t drunk.

Mine was a ’92 convertible – medium metallic blue, with a brand new top, and those gawdawful busy alloy wheels. I quickly located a set of wheels like Keith’s and got them fitted, and that helped a bit. Nothing, however, could be done about the “six headlight” fascia, so I left that as it was when I bought it. I did track down and purchase all of the bits to add on the very interesting factory rear spoiler for the car – both tailights and the center piece for the trunk. Oddly enough, this damn car was a show-stopper wherever we took it, and I answered many questions while either my food got cold, or my ice cream got soft. Our Cutlass was very reliable, and I only sold it because we ran out of room and cold no longer house two convertibles once the mate’s new car arrived. I still enjoy seeing survivors, since they are so distinctive . . .

Funny, the two above me hit on two of the items I considered mentioning, but didn’t.

Mark: Yes, that “duck tail” spoiler was an odd one. My favorite local junkyard had (and still has) a ’92 Cutlass International coupe that was supremely well optioned – no pun intended – from which I plucked the three pieces. Never got around to installing them on this car, though; I probably still have them tucked away in the attic. (That parts car was a real sight, having options I’ve never seen before or since… black leather separate back buckets, for instance. It’s also the only Olds I’ve ever seen with a factory HUD – not counting those robbed from Grand Prixes and swapped in.)

Roger: Yes, that’s about the size of it. I wonder if any other car can claim to have been refreshed by removing the composite headlight treatment? None come to mind at the moment.

Keith, do you still have the rear spoiler “duck tail” and tail lights? Would you be interested in selling them to me in Oklahoma? Please call me at 918-852-805two. Or email at koolandese@yahoo.com. Thanks

I have a 95 olds cutlass supreme 2 door my driver side window came off track and my window ended up shadering i was gonna go to junk yard to get another glass but was wandering if they dont have the exact car what other window will interchange with it if possible

The 3.1 litter, according to the Wikipedia Cutlass Supreme article, “retained an excellent reputation for reliability, many of them going over 300,000 miles.” I love my 3.1 coupe. They galvanized the body on those early 90’s Cutlass Supreme ‘s and they never rusted. Oldsmobile!